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My new favorite book of all time

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Re: My new favorite book of all time

#161

Post by haberman »

pron wrote: post #109
iamcasen wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I couldn't help but feel like Pinker is peddling feel-good nonsense to sell books, and give people hope to cling to. Progress or betterment is entirely subjective, and when considering the human condition, relies on too many variables to even count. Of course, the variables the Pinker focuses on have gotten better overall. The way I see it is a chaotic scatterplot that is trending slightly upwards towards…

Pinker is much more nefarious (and you can know that by going to his talks, as I have, where he's more loose-tongued than in his books). He places such emphasis on the fact that the world is getting better as a rebuttal to "complainers" and political activists . The problem is not with his premise but with his conclusion. The world has been getting better (to the extent that it has) because people complain and are di…

I don't think Pinker is against activists making the world better. But activists need to convince people that their ideas actually will improve things. Lots of activists have made the world better, but some have made it worse, despite having good intentions (see: eugenics, communism).

If you're trying to sell people on the idea that status quo institutions like capitalism are bad, you have to compare it to the alternatives. You can't just say "bad things happen under capitalism, therefore we need to do away with it." That's comparing capitalism vs. utopia, but utopia doesn't exist, for all kinds of practical reasons.

Pinker makes the case for what the world as we know it has achieved. An activist who thinks another system would be better has to convince people that their alternative will achieve more.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#162

Post by simonh »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #49
dfmooreqqq wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It seems to me that it's not so much that war "is illegal" as "certain countries have declared a monopoly on force and have the means to enforce it."" In some lines of thought, that's the definition of illegal...

OK, but even by that definition, it's not the UN that has made it illegal. The UN is pretty toothless. I mean, yes, they have peacekeeping forces. Those forces are not keeping the peace by force. In fact, there have been times when they have stood aside while one side violated the peace, because the UN force's rules of engagement didn't allow them to use force to prevent one side from starting the war back up.

It can be pretty toothless, but the mere fact that it exists as a platform for discussion, expression if views and the firmation if consensus is a huge improvement compared to nothing. I think the experience nations get of working together on issues is also pretty valuable.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#163

Post by igravious »

jnordwick wrote: post #64
cs702 wrote: post #11

I read Pinker's previous book, "The Better Angels of Our Nature," and found it eye-opening; it changed the way I perceived the world. Highly recommended. (Here's a review: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/books/review/the-better-an... ) This book, his latest one, is now an automatic buy for me.

So torn. I'm generally a Pinker fan, but almost detest Peter Singer's thought to the core. Singer recommending that book makes me really second guess the recommendation. But I respect Bill Gates immensely too. Maybe the idea that Pinker could write a book so loved by both Gates and Singer is a testament to how good it is?

I've got an idea. Why don't you form your opinion of the work based on its own merits by reading a sample from it?

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#164

Post by aljones »

topleveldomain wrote: post #17

" War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations." I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigge…

The US and Russia avoided conflict with each other before and after the atom bomb, and also before and after the UN made it illegal. I'm not sure either were essential or even effective deterrents.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#165

Post by nsxwolf »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #85
JorgeGT wrote: post #72

> Time spent doing laundry fell from 11.5 hours a week in 1920 to an hour and a half in 2014. This might sound trivial in the grand scheme of progress. But the rise of the washing machine has improved quality of life by freeing up time for people—mostly women—to enjoy other pursuits. This. I remember following Reddit AMAs of two centenarian women, women who remembered SS troops arriving at their village, who watched…

It’s worth noting that the act of sorting, inserting, removing, and putting away clothing is not very labor intensive. Having to manually wash each article of clothing takes actual effort, which can be quite tiring. It’s not easy to engage in other pursuits when one is tired out from physical labor. One could argue that the savings in exertion even outweigh the savings in time.

But now we're all fat.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#166

Post by TeMPOraL »

coldtea wrote: post #149
TeMPOraL wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people complain about their culture disappearing, and being replaced by the universal culture (usually, but wrongly, called "Western culture" or "American culture"). It's one of the many factors contributing to the present rise of nationalism in Europe. Personally, I don't mind the universal culture. But then, I'm just comfortable in it; many people are not, and cling to their local traditions.

> usually, but wrongly, called "Western culture" or "American culture" Usually, but not wrongly. Not only because bona fide American culture (even morals and soapiness) are the majority of what's replacing local cultures, but also because the little of regional cultures that becomes international does so after it passes from an American filter/lens. > Personally, I don't mind the universal culture. But then, I'm just…

Let me clarify what I meant: it's not wrong that it's Western/American because it's where it happens to be coming from, which is just the function of US being currently the biggest economic and cultural influencer. But I say it's wrongly called because at its core it's not American - it's older than America, and lots of its part have nothing to do with the US or the Western world.

The universal culture is, simply, what wins on the cultural market.

Looking through this lens, McDonald's and Coca Cola, and cars and Internet shopping, are present worldwide not because of American imperialism, but because they are better, in many aspects, to what they replace locally. People find utility in fast food restaurants, sweet beverages, urbanization, "western" healthcare, etc. The US isn't parking its aircraft carriers in the Baltic to tell Poland that we have to open Starbucks (and similarly structured competition), nor does Sweden threaten us with another Thirty Years War if we don't start buying prefab furniture. All of those won on the cultural market, and they're only associated with the West because the West is leading in economy and innovation, contributing the most to the universal culture at this time.

> In other words, you don't mind a base monoculture and the loss of untold regional treasures and ways of human expression.

Actually, I don't. Or put another way - I'm not particularly fond of trying to artificially protect existing local cultures and old traditions. Cultures are mostly arbitrary anyways; I don't care much for what kind of folklore dance I am supposed to engage in at weddings. But I accept that other people do, so I'm also against forcing the choice. But not forcing the choice is also precisely what makes universal culture universal - it's the set of things people adopt on their own over what they did previously.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#167

Post by claytoneast »

dragonwriter wrote: post #136
rjkennedy98 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dickens was the most popular entertainer of his time. Shakespeare was widely popular as well. Both are considered too difficult for most audiences now days. Can you imagine a writer like Dickens being the most popular in contemporary America or in the UK? Our most popular figure is Kim Kardashian. And my point about the Church was not to say that religion is all good, but to point to the fact that people are disconne…

> Dickens was the most popular entertainer of his time. Shakespeare was widely popular as well. Both are considered too difficult for most audiences now days. Difficult largely because of the relatively rapid rate of drift in English idiom (which is a unique feature of English); but less popular largely not because of difficulty but drift in taste for entertainment media which is more about shifting fashion than any…

I think you are disregarding the degradation of the human attention span that modern media has brought to our minds. If you really think there is no difference in capacity between the minds of that time and now, just google "technology and attention span" and spend some time with the results. If you can manage to hold your attention long enough to read through them :) I know hardly anyone anymore who can sit on a couch and read for even 5 minutes without a break in attention to do something on their phone. The capacity absolutely is not there.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#168

Post by nscalf »

topleveldomain wrote: post #17

" War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations." I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigge…

On top of that, I would argue that war was able to be made illegal because the major world powers found war among themselves to be incredibly ineffective. Many years, massive amounts of money, and hundreds of millions of working/reproducing aged citizens died for almost no gain by most countries. It makes a lot more sense to work things out through international policies and economics than by bombs and guns. All that being said, Russia still invades Crimea and Georgia, maybe because it's just easier and faster with absolute overwhelming force.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#169

Post by simonh »

hoopladler wrote: post #54
topleveldomain wrote: post #17

" War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations." I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigge…

>Surely the Cold War would have been a real war if not for nukes, no? I don't think the US and Russia were avoiding conflict because "the UN made it illegal." No way, no how. Russia's economy, at their peak, was 1/7th of the size of the USA's. At the end of WW2, it's unlikely they could have beaten western Europe, let alone kept the US out, who were clocking 50% of world GDP at the end of '45. Equally, the USA could…

the cist of tye war to Russia was also ruinous and maintaining that level of conventional forces would have been a real priblem. Bear in mind they got a lot of material support from the Allies during the war and continuing without that would have been very painful.

One of the first things Kruschev did was cut ground forces by a third, to rely on missiles for a deterrence based defence because they realisec they couldnt match the west in conventional capability.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#170

Post by sooheon »

haberman wrote: post #161
pron wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pinker is much more nefarious (and you can know that by going to his talks, as I have, where he's more loose-tongued than in his books). He places such emphasis on the fact that the world is getting better as a rebuttal to "complainers" and political activists . The problem is not with his premise but with his conclusion. The world has been getting better (to the extent that it has) because people complain and are di…

I don't think Pinker is against activists making the world better. But activists need to convince people that their ideas actually will improve things. Lots of activists have made the world better, but some have made it worse, despite having good intentions (see: eugenics, communism). If you're trying to sell people on the idea that status quo institutions like capitalism are bad, you have to compare it to the altern…

> An activist who thinks another system would be better has to convince people that their alternative will achieve more.

Not necessarily according to Pinker's cherry picked statistics. Plantation owners were not going to achieve more by freeing their slaves, at least according to their own accounting.

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